"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"Because I live, ye shall live also."--John xiv. 19.
The Immutable Pledge.
God sometimes selects the most stable and enduring objects in the
material world to illustrate His unchanging faithfulness and love to His
Church. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so doth the Lord
compass his people." But here, the Redeemer fetches an argument from
_His own everlasting nature_. He stakes, so to speak, His own existence
on that of His saints. "_Because I live_, ye shall live also."
Believer! read in this "word of Jesus" thy glorious title-deed. _Thy
Saviour lives_--and His life is the guarantee of thine own. Our true
Joseph is alive. "He is our Brother. He talks kindly to us!" That life
of His, is all that is between us and everlasting ruin. But with Christ
for our life, how inviolable our security! The great Fountain of being
must first be dried up, before the streamlet can. The great Sun must
first be quenched, ere one glimmering satellite which He lights up with
His splendour can. Satan must first pluck the crown from that glorified
Head, before he can touch one jewel in the crown of His people. They
cannot shake one pillar without shaking first the throne. "If we
perish," says Luther, "Christ perisheth with us."
Reader! is thy life now "hid with Christ in God?" Dost thou know the
blessedness of a vital and living union with a living, life-giving
Saviour? Canst thou say with humble and joyous confidence, amid the
fitfulness of thine own ever-changing frames and feelings, "Nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me?" "_Jesus liveth!_"--They
are the happiest words a lost soul and a lost world can hear! Job, four
thousand years ago, rejoiced in them. "I know," says he, "that I have _a
living Kinsman_." John, in his Patmos exile, rejoiced in them. "I am He
that liveth" (or _the Living One_), was the simple but sublime utterance
with which he was addressed by that same "Kinsman," when He appeared
arrayed in the lustres of His glorified humanity. "This is _the_ record"
(as if there was a whole gospel comprised in the statement), "that God
hath given to us eternal life, and this _life_ is in His Son." St. Paul,
in the 8th chapter to the Romans--that finest portraiture of Christian
character and privilege ever drawn, begins with "no condemnation," and
ends with "no separation." Why "no separation?" Because the life of the
believer is incorporated with that of his adorable Head and Surety. The
colossal Heart of redeemed humanity beats upon the throne, sending its
mighty pulsations through every member of His body; so that, before the
believer's spiritual life can be destroyed, Omnipotence must become
feebleness, and Immutability become mutable!
But, blessed Jesus, "Thy word is very sure, therefore Thy servant loveth
it."
"I GIVE UNTO THEM ETERNAL LIFE, AND THEY SHALL NEVER PERISH, NEITHER
SHALL ANY MAN PLUCK THEM OUT OF MY HAND."